Glowing Plants? ...Naturally.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Okay... well it's been a while since I've started one of my Hypo-projects, so here's what's on the drawing board now:

I'm going to be making plants glow!

Yup. Without going into too many details, here's how I'm going to accomplish this biotechnological curiosity:

There's a gene called luc found in fireflies, which codes for an enzyme: luciferase. Luciferase catalyzes the oxidation of the substrate luciferin, creating light as a by-product, putting on those wonderful shows during summer nights.

What I'm going to do is insert this gene into a Ti plasmid of the bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The Ti plasmid in turn prompts the bacteria to cause "cancer" in dicotyledon plants.

In my experiment, I will expose very tiny samples of tobacco plant leaves to the bacteria, which will incorporate their DNA (containing the luc gene) into the plant's genome.

When all is said and done, and new tobacco plants have grown, I will water them with a solution of luciferin, causing them to glow biologically.

I'm still finalizing plans and gathering materials, so stand by.

[freeztar]

That's sounds like a fun experiment!

How did you come up with the idea?

[Mercedes Benzene]

Originally Posted by freeztar

That's sounds like a fun experiment!

How did you come up with the idea?

Well I wanted to do some sort of genetic modification. I was actually inspired by a picture in a Biology book, which showed a plant glowing yellow in the dark, so this is what I ended up with.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

...I'm going to be making plants glow!

Sweeeeetttt! Will it work on trees too? Glowing bonsai! Glowing rows of trees down the boulevard negating the need of electric street lights!

It's like Christmas all over again. Standing by................

[Racoon]

Sorry Turtle,
Tobacco is very easy to grow. as compared to trees and Bonzai. Tobacco grows like a weed almost..

But never-the-less, this is very interesting.

[Mercedes Benzene]

It would indeed be possible to perform the same mutation on trees, however, as racoon hints at, it would be somewhat more complicated. You would have to use more difficult methods of introducing the genes including: electroporation or DNA guns (). One may use agrobacterium tumefaciens on dicotyledons only, which trees are not.

Also remember that the reaction is dependent upon the substrate luciferin, which is VERY expensive when produced synthetically (some estimates show $90 for 2 milligrams!) so it would not be economical to make trees glow...
...although it would be fantastic!

So in sum, racoon is right. Tobacco is very easy to grow from undifferentiated tobacco cells (more on those later), and is affected by the bacteria that will introduce the gene.


EDIT: It seems that some trees are dicots (I thought that only flowering plants were)... but again, I would argue against the effectiveness of the methods described in my original design.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

...
EDIT: It seems that some trees are dicots (I thought that only flowering plants were)... but again, I would argue against the effectiveness of the methods described in my original design.

Acknowledged on difficult to glow trees. To clarify though, trees are flowering plants. Will it present any danger to smoke the treated tobacco?

[Mercedes Benzene]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Acknowledged on difficult to glow trees. To clarify though, trees are flowering plants. Will it present any danger to smoke the treated tobacco?

Interesting... I always just assumed that "flowering plants" meant the smaller varieties. You know, the more shrubby things.

But, as I don't intend to smoke any of my experiment, I couldn't possibly say for sure whether or not it would be harmful, although I could only assume that it would be perfectly fine.
I don't imagine that the bacteria would pass on any genes that code for harmful products.